Remember Inception? Yes, I’m talking about the movie where you can build dreams within dreams and start a journey without a definitive end? Containers are somewhat a similar tech – in a manner of speaking – where you run multiple operating systems, one inside another.
The idea of containers is not new, but they are now extensively used inside regular gadgets. The games that are you playing on your Xbox One are actually running inside a container. Even the Linux environment inside Chrome OS (known as ‘Crostini’) is basically a separate sandbox style container.
Talking about Crostini, Google recently broke Linux support on multiple Chrome OS powered devices in the latest beta update. Take a deep breath, as the nice guys over Google allegedly introduced another pesky bug, for which Android apps are unable to access internet/network connection.
I’m currently on Version 76.0.3809.38 (Official Build) dev (64-bit).
When I start the Play Store it keeps telling me I have no network connection.
Further investigation suggests networking is not working for Android apps.
Anybody else having this issue?
(Source)
As you can see, the bug affects pretty much every kind of Chrome OS powered device – be it a Chromebook or a tab. The relevant entry in the Chromium Bug Tracker is already starred 72 times, and the volume of reports are gradually expanding.
Affected users have manually upgraded to latest canary build (v77), but the issue persists. According to some tinkerers, the network daemon of the Android runtime container (arc-networkd) crashes due to a faulty execution of arc-oemcrypto, resulting the loss of network connectivity.
a Pixelbook in dev mode dev channel: everything fine until the Netflix app is launched.
looking at the logs, a reproductible crash (segfault) of arc-networkd happens in dev mode. It seems Netflix uses arc-oemcrypto which fails in dev mode (“Message=OEMCrypto disabled in dev mode”) leading may be (?) to arc-networkd crashing.
log: kernel: arc-networkd[2166]: segfault at 18 ip 000058eed074bd89 sp 00007fff058d6030 error 4 in arc-network
(Source)
A quick workaround discovered by the users: you need to get rid of apps which use arc-oemcrypto, such as Netflix or Play Movies. However, the solution does not work for everybody.
Google is aware of the situation, as a few Chrome OS developers are interacting with the affected users. However, the status of the issue is still marked as ‘Unconfirmed’.
Are you facing network connectivity issues with Android apps on your Chromebook? Let us know by commenting below.
Thanks Some_Random_Username for the tip!
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Chrome OS
Kingshuk De
896 Posts
I came from a mixed background of Statistics and Computer Science. My research domains included embedded computer systems, mobile computing and delay tolerant networks in post-disaster scenarios. Apart from tinkering with gadgets or building hackintosh, I like to hop on various subreddits and forums like MyDigitalLife and XDA.
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